Large print workflow 101, anybody?

RKeaton

I usually sell digital files or just small prints to my customers. But now I've got some people interested in larger prints for wall hangings, 16 x 24 or so.

I really want the print quality to be excellent on these orders. Can someone give me a quick rundown on how they prepare an image (starting with a Canon RAW file) for this type of output?

Will I still upload a jpeg to SmugMug or a different file type (tiff, e.g.)? Does it matter what ppi tag I give it? What about color spaces? Any advice would be great.

You don't have to overexplain it because I understand PS fairly well. I have CS2, btw. Just a brief list of steps that you use would be great.

A big thanks in advance.

corbosman

Here's what I do..

- do whatever touching up I feel necessary for the image
- save the image as a TIFF for lossless archiving
- convert the colorspace to sRGB
- save the image as a high resolution JPG, no upressing. I use quality 11.
- upload the image

Sofar with smugmug ive not bothered to change the ppi or resolution. I ordered myself some large prints, and they look fine. I believe this is what Smugmug recommends anyways.

Regards,

Cor

RKeaton

Thanks for that, Cor.

Andy

corbosman wrote:

Here's what I do..

- do whatever touching up I feel necessary for the image
- save the image as a TIFF for lossless archiving
- convert the colorspace to sRGB
- save the image as a high resolution JPG, no upressing. I use quality 11.
- upload the image

Sofar with smugmug ive not bothered to change the ppi or resolution. I ordered myself some large prints, and they look fine. I believe this is what Smugmug recommends anyways.

Regards,

Cor

but feel free to use JPG 10, that's considered Lab Quality.

RKeaton

Andy wrote:

but feel free to use JPG 10, that's considered Lab Quality.

Not to play devil's advocate, Andy, but do you recommend JPEG level 10 because it helps SmugMug not waste server space? If you tell me that 10 is truly a sufficient save setting then I would believe you. It just makes me wonder, if 10 is considered "lab quality" then what are 11 and 12...overkill?

Again, I was preparing some files for 16 x 24 inch prints when I posted my original question about workflow. I know that's not the biggest print, but it's pretty big. I wanted to ensure max print quality so I saved them at 12. You're saying 10 would have been fine? If so, what is the difference anyway...